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Friday, December 23, 2011

Earth has more than one moon, astronomers confirm

Earth gets mooned twice, how nice. It's amazing how much we humans don't know what is going on in our backyard, a few miles above the Earth, yet we think we have an inkling of what is going on with the furthest planets, and other star systems in this galaxy.

We get mooned more than twice in any given month, more like dozens of times by rocky and not so rocky things that can go bump in the night...sky.

The discovery is considered a major breakthrough for space research because
scientists had been working toward visiting asteroids outside of Earth's orbit
for research. While these temporary moons are too small for a shuttle landing,
they are prime for research from a relatively close distance.

However, it's still to be determined whether the announcement will capture
the public's attention like previously revealed New
Moons. Either way, it should be a decidedly more pleasant experience for all
involved.

The new paper titled "The population of natural Earth satellites," from
Cornell University's Mikael Granvik, Jeremie Vaubaillon and Robert Jedicke
states that these "secret moons" enter and exit the Earth's orbit without
notice.

"At any given time, there should be at least one natural Earth satellite of
1-meter diameter orbiting the Earth," Granvik
writes.

Scientists have confirmed at least one such temporary moon, discovered by the
Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona in 2006.

"Our results are consistent with the single known natural
[temporarily-captured orbiter] 2006 RH120, a few-meter diameter object that was
captured for about a year starting in June 2006," the report says.